Latino Daily News

Bank of Mexico to Allow Remittances via Cell Phones

The Bank of Mexico said Monday it was taking a series of measures to promote the use of mobile devices for making money transfers.

The goal is to give bank customers the ability to move funds “with greater ease and safety via cellular phones or other devices that have a linked mobile telephone line,” the central bank said in a statement.

Customers will now be able to ask their banks to link their deposit accounts to a mobile device to receive transfers, the Bank of Mexico said.

Banks are required to establish the link and execute transfers by using the number of the recipient’s device, the amount to transfer and the information on the financial institution that houses the individual’s account.

Banks must expand the hours during which they provide money transfer services for mobile devices from 6:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day effective Sept. 26, 2014.

Service hours must go to 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. effective on Nov. 14, 2014, the central bank said.

Financial institutions are also being required to speed up the processing time for money transfers so “they can be executed in less than 15 seconds as of Feb. 20, 2015,” the Bank of Mexico said.

The processing fee for transfers to mobile devices using the Electronic Interbank Payment System, or SPEI, is being reduced to 10 centavos (.0077 cents), the central bank said.

The Bank of Mexico also set regulations covering commissions charged by banks to clients for transfers and said it would monitor the fees to ensure they remained low.